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Day Six Intinerary:
Girls try to go to Versailles
Musee d’Orsay
Boys make it to Versailles

The boys were too tired to wake up — they’d been out until 6 am wandering around Paris looking for a nightclub that would admit a couple of scruffy 17-year-old American boys — so the girls and I ventured off to Versailles without them. There was a three-hour line to get tickets, so we decided not to wait.  We regrouped and headed off to the fabulous Musee d’Orsay. We had a plan to get an early start tomorrow and be the first people in line for the Versailles Palace when it opened.

The D’Orsay is a spiritual experience for me. I went around checking in with my favorite paintings and just feeling very grateful to be there. We met up with the boys for dinner and heard about their adventures. They’d taken the train to Versailles, had jumped the line for tickets because they’re under 18 and are admitted free, and explored the whole palace.

Day Four Itinerary:
Tried to go to Musee D’Orsay,closed
Louvre
Cath home sick
Sara and the girls go shopping
Boys AWOL

We set a course for the Musee D’Orsay with Wylie on navigation duties, but regrettably, found it to be closed. This time the closure was not due to the whim of the French proletariat but rather the ineptitude of the itinerary maker. Not to be daunted, we crossed the river and hit a little art boite we like to call the Louvre. We split up and in various groups and saw The Mona Lisa, the Egyptian collection, furnishings from Napoleon’s apartments, Venus di Milo, and paintings from the 17th thru 19th century Dutch and French Masters.  Hannah says that seeing the dead mummy was the  best part. For me, the Louvre is a little overstuffed. Too much to see. The best part was being on a quest with Elizabeth to find the Mona Lisa. After that, I succumbed to a bad cold and returned to rest at the hotel.  The rest of the gang marched onward.

Sara is very glamorous

It doesn't seem real

An American girl in Paris

In the medievel part of the museum

Napoleon's apartments

DaVinci Code, anyone?

This typeface reflects the optimism of post-war Europe

WHAT TYPEFACE IS THIS? You’ve probably never thought about it, but magazine publishers certainly do. A designer choosing a typeface is like a director casting a role. I just Netflixed a fascinating documentary called Helvetica, which is about the development and use of that font. The year was 1957, the era was post-war, and the mood was rampant idealism. Helvetica was modern. It was so clean and neutral that it allowed the meaning of the content to shine through unemcumbered. Typefaces follow trends. When my magazine Working World was launched in 1988, Helvetica had fallen out of favor and I refused to use it. The face looked too boring, too corporate. The design at the time was trending towards grunge, towards crazy creativity and hand-drawn type. We had a guy who worked as a freelance ad builder and I absolutely hated his style. “Mr. Helvetica Bold,” I called him. It was a grave insult.

The Sunday talk shows still lead the news cycle

BOTH MEN participated in the round table on “This Week,” George Stephanopolous’s show on the Sunday morning talk show curcuit. George Will presents the pure conservative position and Robert Reich the liberal. They were discussing what should be done about AIG specifically, and the banks in general that are being bailed out with TARP funds. Mr. Will said that AIG should submit to the discipline of the market by reorganizing under the appropriate chapter of bankruptcy. Mr. Reich said, “you’ll ge no disagreement from me there.” They both seemed surprised to find themselves in agreement.

The Richard Meier design is a piece of art

Beauty is essential for the soul

FEELING STRESSED by the challenge of running a small publishing company during the Great Recession, I retreated to the Getty for an afternoon of solitude.When the Getty Center first opened one of my East Coast friends informed me that the Getty “was too good for Los Angeles.” We did not deserve it. We were too shallow and barbarian to appreciate it.

Then came the Disney Hall — a truly magnificent concert space. Opening night was Mahler’s Second, the Resurrection Symphony. People were awestruck, the music sounded so perfect. I remember the old days when the LA Phil had to play in the rectangular box of the Music Center. The acoustics were so dreadful the orchestra had to change the way certain instruments were played to compensate for the deficiencies of the room. During the first season at the Disney Hall, audiences were particularly poorly behaved. One night a pack of people arrived late and were seated after the first movement (a bad practice IMHO). Esa Pekka Salonen turned and glared at them and waited painfully for them to sit down before continuing with the piece.

I think Los Angeles has grown up a lot since the installation of the west-east anchors of culture in the Getty Center and the Disney Hall. We’ve moved beyond our collective adolescence and learned to embrace our treasures. We would be deficient without them.

How did they ever rebuild this place?

TIMES MAY be tough now, but any student of 20th century European history will tell you — this ain’t nothin’.  Imagine living through either of the world wars and having your city completely annihalated. Or being Jewish and facing the unspeakable. Or witnessing your Jewish neighbors getting rounded up by the gestapo and reaching deep down inside yourself to ask, do I resist or do I keep my head down and go along? Then the war ends and Soviet tanks roll into your town square.  Bombing raids, rallies, death camps, airlifts, fire-bombing — kinda puts a foreclosure mess into perspective.

The exhibit at LACMA features the work of German Expressionists who are clearly working through some extreme post-war anxiety. Each piece is more visceral than the next.

One of my favorite German Expressionist artists is Hannah Hoch, a dadaist and feminist who launched photomontage as an art form. Her work is not for the faint of heart,

No lilly pads and haystacks for this sad lot